


my name is

by too_much_in_the_sun



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 02:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2530478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/too_much_in_the_sun/pseuds/too_much_in_the_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor at work on Proteus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my name is

**Author's Note:**

> I found this sitting in an out-of-the-way folder and decided to just post it, because why not. I was probably going to keep going from here, but whatever, good enough.

Victor sings to his son, in his cradle of copper, swaddled in electrodes. He hums nameless tunes as he stitches, snips, wipes, repairs. In the cool of winter, sparks of static fly between the two of them sometimes, and as Victor curses and rubs his stung hand, it seems as though the dead flesh in the cradle is merely sleeping.

In a sense, that is the truth. The body in the cradle is not dead – it has never lived. It is waiting to be born, and it is Victor who will draw it into the world.

Him. Draw _him_ , he reminds himself. It's easier to call a subject _it_ when there is no face to gaze upon, no gently expressive hands to grasp. Now it is becoming easier to say _he_ , though the deep-brown and thoughtful eyes are covered by their lids and there is no presence in the body before him.

It's like working on a coma patient, or someone in a deep ether stupor. The heart keeps time, plodding along with thick, weary slowness, and the lungs expand and contract in their natural rhythm, pulling oxygen into the arteries to sustain the body.

Yet as much as he knows that there is no true spark of life, no _mind_ in this body as of yet, he finds his actions do not follow with the thought.

"Your mother is the lightning, and I am your father," he mumbles to himself, slurring the words into a half-song. "London will enfold you, and you will know her well."

He pats away a slow droplet of blood from the skin of the left forearm, and sits back to admire his work. Below the waist he can be assured of few prying eyes ever gaining the chance to view his needlework, but it is of the utmost importance that his work be fine and delicate _above_ the waist, lest his creation have a look of artifice to his many scars.

Not “creation” – _son_ , he reminds himself, as he wipes his needle and rewinds the catgut thread for storage. He kicks his stool a little closer to the cradle, to better observe what he has made.

He has made a good body. A strong one, all wiry muscle and lean energy.

So unlike his own.

 


End file.
